You Must Remember This

Thursday, 20 June 2013

BEFORE MIDNIGHT

As I commented in my recent review of Stuck
In Love, I'm not what you would call a fan of romantic movies. Regardless of
the suffix (romcom, romdram, rom sci-fi), the tropes of filmic love - eyes
meeting across a crowded room, the initial dislike, the banter, repartee, the
eventual kiss, - do nothing for me. The sad truth is that the plight of two
characters in love has never enthralled me as much as, say, two characters
planning a murder.

As such, I was surprised to discover that Before
Midnight, the latest instalment in Richard Linklater's Before... series,
was not only the best film of my two-day critic's session, but one of purest
cinematic experiences I've had in a long time.

The film picks up nine years after the
events of 2004’s After Sunset as our lovers, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and
Celine (Julie Delpy), enjoy a holiday on the Greek Peloponnese. One of
series' conceits is that it takes place in real time, checking in
on them periodically. This has the effect of making Jesse and Celine feel like
real people, one of the many way in which their relationship seems authentic.

Of the previous two films, I had only seen
the original, Before Sunrise, and that long enough ago that I came into
the film without feeling any prior connection to the characters. Even as a
first meeting with the pair, Before Sunset is stunning.

Both Hawke and Delpy give incredibly
nuanced, Oscar-worthy performances; the only reason for which, I believe, it’ll
never happen is humility. Both actor’s share the film's 109 minutes screen-time down to the wire. Hawke’s Jesse is an intelligent but slightly callow, perennially
charming forty-something; Celine’s Delpy, less tolerant of bullshit than her
long-time partner, less inclined to play the martyr, is more of a realist.

It is a relationship of equals and, as
such, when they find themselves mounted on opposing sides of an issue, their
forces are evenly matched. Before Sunset shows no preference to either side of
the argument when it arrives; where you fall will depend largely to whom you
most relate.

My sympathies lay mainly with Jesse who, on
the verge of being estranged from his now teenage son, is angling towards
moving out to Chicago in order to be in his life. Celine, however, is
considering taking a high-profile job that will keep them in France and is
unwilling to sacrifice her career for a few years of custody squabbles. Jesse’s
career as a writer is
very much a moveable feast and never becomes a point of contention.

Critics have said that Before Midnight is
appropriately darker than the first two films, Sunrise and Sunset. If Sunrise was
about the birth of a relationship and Sunset about picking up where you left
off, then it seems Midnight is about the struggle for endurance.

This is a true battle of the sexes, no
clichés or easy laughs (which is not to say Midnight isn’t funny, but its humour
feels grounded, in-the-woof.) Jesse and Celine have two kids together,
beautiful blond twins, but, though they remain very much peripheral characters,
they rarely feature in their arguments.

This is not about “doing it for the
kids”: this is about two flawed, passionate individuals working through the reasons to stay
together/split up, throwing invective and navigating old hurts (or occasionally
the reverse).

With its long, continuous takes (a
discussion in the car between Jesse and Celine lasts almost 20 minutes) and
character-driven, dialogue-heavy, plot-light style, Before Midnight manages to
truly say something amidst the arthouse trappings.

If the message here is that living together can be difficult and that love is compromise, it also says that that it can be a difficult compromise worth fighting for. With luck, we'll be checking in on Jesse and Celine in 2022.

Verdict: Often seeming more like theater
than cinema, less Mama Mia than something by Eric Rohmer, Before Midnight is a
wonderful, naturalistic piece of cinema-making. Essentially a series of
duologues or conversations, it manages to shed new light on a complex,
twenty-seven yearlong relationship. Never pretentious, always fresh, the film
is beautifully if simply shot and utterly without ego. Mature and honest, witty and insightful, too –
superlatives abound – suffice to say it’s rehabilitated a genre for me. While I
can’t promise to run out and hire The Notebook, I have no hesitation in awarding Before
Midnight *****

About Me

BA in English and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London; MA in Screenwriting from the London Film School. Formerly Film & TV Editor for London-based culture site The Metropolist (www.themetropolist.com) and Official Sidekick (Assistant Editor) of superhero site A Place to Hang Your Cape (www.ap2hyc.com). Currently member of the Online Film Critics Society (http://www.ofcs.org/robert-wallis/). Follow me on Twitter @robertmwallis or on Facebook at Of All the Film Blogs (https://www.facebook.com/OfAllTheFilmBlogs?fref=ts).